Cruise-assist systems for assisting driving of a target vehicle have been recently proposed.
Such a cruise-assist system collects, from each of other vehicles except for the target vehicle, driving-state data items including driver's driving operations and/or an ambient environment in the corresponding one of the other vehicles. Then, the cruise-assist system stores the driving-state data items collected from each of the other vehicles such that each of the driving-state data items is correlated with the corresponding collected location.
The cruise-assist system is configured to assist, when the vehicle to be assisted is travelling at a predetermined location, the travelling of the vehicle to be assisted in accordance with the driving-state data items being stored which are correlated with the predetermined location.
For example, a cruise-assist system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2016-6597 collects, from each of plural vehicles, referred to as sample vehicles, probe information items including its position information, its vehicle speed information, and its fuel economy information. Then, the cruise-assist system divides the probe information items into plural groups for the respective models of the plural vehicles, and collects driving data items divided for each of the vehicle model identifiers; the vehicle model identifiers correspond to the respective models of the plural vehicles.
In particular, the cruise-assist system is configured such that each road is comprised of plural sections between adjacent intersections on the corresponding road. The plural sections of each road will be referred to as road links.
Specifically, the cruise-assist system collects, for each road link, the probe information items from each of the sample vehicles that is travelling on the corresponding road link.
Then, the cruise-assist system obtains, based on the probe information items of each of the vehicle model identifiers collected for each of the road links, control information about minimizing the fuel economy for the corresponding vehicle model identifier and for the corresponding road link. The control information for each of the vehicle model identifiers include, for example, a rotational speed of a main engine of the vehicle corresponding to the vehicle model identifier, information indicative of the gear position of a transmission of the vehicle, and information indicative of the speed of the vehicle.
The cruise-assist system stores, in a database, the control information for each vehicle model identifier and for each road link such that the control information for the corresponding vehicle model identifier is correlated with the corresponding road link.
When a vehicle to be assisted is travelling on a road link, the cruise-assist system reads, from the database, the control information corresponding to the type of the assisted vehicle and being correlated with the road link. Then, the cruise-assist system performs, based on the readout control information, cruise-assist of the assisted vehicle such that the energy efficiency of the assisted vehicle becomes higher.